Comments on: Turning Free-Roaming Horses Into Border Guardshttp://dissidentvoice.org/2008/12/turning-free-roaming-horses-into-border-guards/
a radical newsletter in the struggle for peace and social justiceSat, 27 Sep 2014 17:28:19 +0000hourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.1By: Maryanne Appelhttp://dissidentvoice.org/2008/12/turning-free-roaming-horses-into-border-guards/#comment-36339
Tue, 13 Jan 2009 18:54:11 +0000http://www.dissidentvoice.org/?p=5597#comment-36339So many harsh, bitter comments on this discussion list! The kind words, reasonable claims, unbiased opinions, and well-thought-out arguments, all of which make sense to me, were presented by Lee, Priscilla, Dustin, Ellie, and a few others. They speak on behalf of those who can’t; not looking for comfort, convenience, or profit from other beings, but simply because it is the right thing to do.

Too often, humans consider anyone (other animals) or anything (plants) as invasive, “weeds,” while it is our own humankind that encroaches on just about every other species on the planet. Allowing horses and burros to live free of human intrusion is the right thing to do. Even if these equids were not native to our continent, what right does anyone have to disrupt their lives, separate their families, and remove them from the only home they know? To my knowledge, most of us (I’m excepting the true Native Americans here) living in the U.S. today are not indigenous either.

]]>By: Ellie Maldonadohttp://dissidentvoice.org/2008/12/turning-free-roaming-horses-into-border-guards/#comment-34723
Mon, 29 Dec 2008 19:08:11 +0000http://www.dissidentvoice.org/?p=5597#comment-34723Alas, since I haven’t had the pleasure of talking with echidnas, I googled “burros and other animals”. Burros were blamed for degrading the habitat of desert tortoise — but the burro and tortoise have co-existed in the same area for over 150 years. And burros were blamed for competing with bighorn sheep in the Mojave Desert — but bighorns were reintroduced to the area with a corresponding boom in trophy hunting permits. Hunters, of course, want to keep the population of their victims high, even if it means inflating them artificially, as killing burros would do.

It’s all part of a notion, as Lee Hall explains, that assumes humans have a right to control other animals. If we respected their right to live on their own terms, we wouldn’t create the problems we have now. Sanctuaries should be reserved for dependent animals who can’t survive on their own, and we should protect the freedom of those who can.

As it happens, I found more reasons why free-living horses and burros help, rather than harm, other animals: Unlike cows, who lack upper teeth and often need to pull grass from its roots, equids can graze without disturbing roots. What equids eat can continue to grow.

Unlike ruminants, horses and burrows don’t digest seeds. Their digestive process returns seeds to the land. Horse’s add humus to the soil, which retains moisture and in turn prevents fires.

In winter, equids break the ice with their hooves to open water sources that other animals depend on. In summer, they hoof down subterranean waters that are also used by other animals.

Yet while agribusiness pollutes the environment, the BLM claims free-living equids must be controlled to protect the ecology. I think it’s obvious the BLM is in bed with ranchers and hunters — and now that they’re using horses to militarize the border, they’ve added bigots to the list.

I look forward to the day when other humans get over their self-interests, and consider that other species have interests as well, and that we can live in harmony with the rest of the planet (rather than dominating and exploiting every element possible.)

Horses are no exception, and despite being feral or wild (neither make a difference when considering their interests), surely we can allow them to live their lives without harassment, and leave them space to do so. Is that really such an unfair or unreasonable request?

]]>By: Priscilla Feralhttp://dissidentvoice.org/2008/12/turning-free-roaming-horses-into-border-guards/#comment-34714
Mon, 29 Dec 2008 17:23:10 +0000http://www.dissidentvoice.org/?p=5597#comment-34714CORRECTION: In the first sentence of the last paragraph above,
it should read: “Keep the grazing of goats, sheep and cows off of
refuges and public lands.”

It’s horses who belong on public lands.

Livestock production produces an environmental crisis, as
ecosystems have been devastated by ranching. Over 300 mmillion acres of federal, state and other public lands are used as feedlots for
cows and sheep, and ranching operations receive subsidies, thanks
to taxpayers. Horses can be protected and the ecology restored by
overhauling the BLM’s agenda, which operates for private gain.

]]>By: Priscilla Feralhttp://dissidentvoice.org/2008/12/turning-free-roaming-horses-into-border-guards/#comment-34713
Mon, 29 Dec 2008 17:01:09 +0000http://www.dissidentvoice.org/?p=5597#comment-34713In a nutshell: Public lands don’t belong to cattle ranchers. Horses shouldn’t be rounded-up, corraled, slaughtered or privatized because
cattle ranching is a big industry, and some pundits here fantasize about
controlling the activities of every other animal other than themselves.

An end to cattle breeding is a decent idea.

Keep the grazing of goats, sheep, and horses off of refuges and public lands. Use the lands to grow crops to feed people directly. These are radical, progressive ideas fitting for a discussion on DV. Rhetoric about “elk season” is offensive.

]]>By: Hue Longerhttp://dissidentvoice.org/2008/12/turning-free-roaming-horses-into-border-guards/#comment-34622
Sun, 28 Dec 2008 02:16:57 +0000http://www.dissidentvoice.org/?p=5597#comment-34622I agree somewhat Ellie, but the long nosed echidna doesn’t (it’s true, I’ve asked them). Perhaps a refuge and sterilization would be in order for the horse and burro as you suggested for the cow? When you say yes to these guys roaming free, you are saying no to others. Man fucks up and the horse is innocent but that’s not every other animal’s fault
]]>By: Ellie Maldonadohttp://dissidentvoice.org/2008/12/turning-free-roaming-horses-into-border-guards/#comment-34578
Sat, 27 Dec 2008 19:18:43 +0000http://www.dissidentvoice.org/?p=5597#comment-34578Hue, perhaps you’ll agree that if we could turn back the clock, yet lack respect for nonhuman animals, we’d create the same problems all over again. But it’s not too late to understand they are personal beings who have a right to belong to themselves. As recognition of their interests grows, the so-called “need” to breed them for food, or exploit them for sport or other non-reasons would gradually decline.

Instead of controlling them, we’d recognize our obligation to control ourselves, and to respect the habitats that free-living animals depend on. If they aren’t hunted or robbed of their homes, they can adjust their populations within their habitats, according to their food supply.

Most domesticated animals cannot survive on their own. So if everyone stopped eating meat, I think it would be unconscionable to release them to the wild. Since a decline in animal use would be gradual, there wouldn’t be millions of animals in need of our care. I think those who do need care should be protected in sanctuaries, where at least they can live free of exploitation.

]]>By: Mariehttp://dissidentvoice.org/2008/12/turning-free-roaming-horses-into-border-guards/#comment-34569
Sat, 27 Dec 2008 18:24:52 +0000http://www.dissidentvoice.org/?p=5597#comment-34569Yikes! Fabulous article, Lee, the fact that it stirs so much emotion tells much about it. One more opinion in this forum will hardly make a difference, will surely be brushed off as emotional tripe by the more intelligent here. What gives me the shivers is the righteous indignation that just doesn’t allow for any other point of view. The identification of any living species as a feral or a weed, cute or ugly, etc etc… immediately lends itself to a ranking of that being, and humans throughout history have destroyed or enslaved what they perceive to be below them on this artificially created chart. Humans are just a blip on the radar screen of history but have the greatest capacity to cause damage in the shortest time. Was it an old Twilight Zone episode that made the hunter experience the fear, pain, exhaustion that his prey did? Only then did that hunter understand the consequences of his actions. I’d like to think that we all have the capacity to empathize with any creature, given the time and inclination to evolve as such. Until then, I’ll just shed a tear for the damage that is done and the lives that suffer under dominance.
]]>By: Kathy Mhttp://dissidentvoice.org/2008/12/turning-free-roaming-horses-into-border-guards/#comment-34568
Sat, 27 Dec 2008 18:11:47 +0000http://www.dissidentvoice.org/?p=5597#comment-34568Ah but there are LOTS of feral cat colonies!

Capture/spay/re release programs are allowing them to live without continuing to grow in population. Capture and kill was not slowing the population growth at all. It just left room for more cats to move in and establish colonies after the originals are removed.

The American people do not want THEIR mustangs to be killed, and politicians thinking its an easy fix should note that. I do believe the people working for BLM (at the corrals/horse level) do care about the horses.. The problem is they do not control the fate of these horses.

There needs to be a group in charge of the system who cares about the long term survival for the wild herds, but would be able to make honest and fair decisions about what is in their best interest.

Many mustang would chose their partners over a return to the wild. Mustangs living undisturbed are born and raised in a social society. They are raised by the herd, and are far better minded then the domestics we separate and put in boxes from the day they are born.

Do Mustang folks know what their mustangs are thinking and feeling? If they are doing it right.. yes most of the time they do. If they are puzzled or unsure, they have only to mention it to other mustang folks and solutions and advice streams in. Mustang folks LOVE to share the joy these horse bring.

And yes! One would be committing a grave error if they try to MAKE them do something. However if they trust you, and make no mistake that TRUST MUST BE EARNED. They will go where you ask, and do as you wish.. and in return they will tell you when you are heading into a bad situation IF you listen.

They are the best 4 wheel drive. Standard equipment??
They come with a brain, 2 eyes, 2 ears, and a nose which all work far better then ours, instinct born from hundreds of years of life in the wild… and a heart 10 times bigger then yours. ;D

They may look plain and scruffy to some, but to those who take the time to look inside.. oh how they shine!

]]>By: Hue Longerhttp://dissidentvoice.org/2008/12/turning-free-roaming-horses-into-border-guards/#comment-34520
Sat, 27 Dec 2008 03:54:08 +0000http://www.dissidentvoice.org/?p=5597#comment-34520correct on the rabbits and foxes…and horses for other human “needs”—no difference. What would you do with the remaining cattle should everyone stop eating them? Release them to see if they can breed and multiply? They have families and care for their young too . What I’m saying could be considered absurd because turning back the clock almost looks hopeless now (and there were plenty buffal0 eating and stampeding grass lands before development and feral horses), but beyond caring directly for an empathetic creature, there is plant life which keeps all mothers feeding children. The cattle, horses, burros and tractors destroying it is a man made problem
]]>By: Ellie Maldonadohttp://dissidentvoice.org/2008/12/turning-free-roaming-horses-into-border-guards/#comment-34519
Sat, 27 Dec 2008 03:25:44 +0000http://www.dissidentvoice.org/?p=5597#comment-34519Hue, burros and other conscious living beings *deserve* protection because they have personal interests. They care about their lives, their babies, and their groups just as we do ours. Humans have used and transported them with discrimination because “they’re only animals” — until woops, all of sudden they’re inconvenient. And now the same exploiters want to kill them. In my view, that’s neither just or respectable.

Rabbits were released into the wild of Australia for the purpose of hunting them. I believe the same is true of foxes. That of itself would lead me to question the wisdom of human domination.

As long as conscious beings live under human control, their personal interests will be violated. It’s high time, I think, to end the discrimination, and respect their right to be free.

Certainly, using horses to militarize the border is completely unacceptable.

]]>By: Hue Longerhttp://dissidentvoice.org/2008/12/turning-free-roaming-horses-into-border-guards/#comment-34518
Sat, 27 Dec 2008 02:55:07 +0000http://www.dissidentvoice.org/?p=5597#comment-34518rabbits and foxes are cute too…I think the problem here is that people are getting selective about love. There’s “what’s good for mankind” and all the debate over what that implies or entails and then there is the noble idea that man’s “needs”(whether or not they are mutual) shouldn’t matter over the environment—which I agree with (though I’m a practicing hypocrite).

But horses (or bilge dumped starfish), ARE a man made problem. It differs in only magnitude and control compared to active ranching. I don’t think it’s a rancher vs. wild mustang activist issue. unnatural selection and other human folly is literally killing all the life on the planet. I don’t know that it matters though…I’m sure the cane toads and cockroaches and mutating viruses will thrive and just like the cute burro killing off eco systems, it’s not their fault either.

]]>By: Danny Rayhttp://dissidentvoice.org/2008/12/turning-free-roaming-horses-into-border-guards/#comment-34515
Sat, 27 Dec 2008 02:39:53 +0000http://www.dissidentvoice.org/?p=5597#comment-34515Sorry everyone I posted that when I was mad and had I read it over again I would not have sounded so bitchy. I get tired of east coast liberals telling people who they would not have a cup of coffee with how to run their life. My wife is from a ranch just west of Raton NM and believe me those people live from hand to mouth. They have been living that way for three hundred years and I can’t think of them doing anything else. But each year the BLM thru people like FOA and other groups that the closest they get to a mustang is the ford dealership. Put more and more restrictions on how they can live.

As for all you mustang lovers out there I am with you. i just spent the last two weeks of elk season on a very nice Dun mare that my Brother-in-law rescued as a foal when its dam died up near the picketwire.( at least that’s what he said. it could be the comanche in him that just makes hime happy to come home with other peoples stock)
she was one on the nicest and best riding mares I have ever set. and even tho we were in 6 inches of snow most of the time I swear she gained weight.

]]>By: Danny Rayhttp://dissidentvoice.org/2008/12/turning-free-roaming-horses-into-border-guards/#comment-34513
Sat, 27 Dec 2008 02:14:23 +0000http://www.dissidentvoice.org/?p=5597#comment-34513My Dear Mr. Longer, you just don’t understand, cane toads ars SOOO!! gross. Horseys are cute and cuddley. and when I was a little girl I always dreamed of being a princess and having a cute pony.

Sorry about that, I could not resist it. This welfare ranching you people keep talking about seems to be the ony welfair where you mail a check to the goverment. if you want to stop it just mail the BLM a check for about 20 million cow units and put a stop to the wicked ranchers screwing the public. but you do not seem to want to put your livelyhood on the line ,you FOA’s just want the goverment to step in and do all the dirty work. And what do you plan on having all those ranchers who are certainly not rich do. take tickets at your ski resort?
What you are telling me is that you don’t give a damn about the poor people in Flyover country do you. as long as you have your dreams.

]]>By: joedhttp://dissidentvoice.org/2008/12/turning-free-roaming-horses-into-border-guards/#comment-34510
Sat, 27 Dec 2008 00:49:05 +0000http://www.dissidentvoice.org/?p=5597#comment-34510why don’t you folks take all the energy that you use here at dv and use that energy to shut down your country, or at least your city. dv is a wonderful site, it is my home page; i am a dissident. but, dv is a FREE SPEECH ZONE(it allows protest without any effect and it makes you feel like you have done something to create change. but that is illusion and your imagination). it sucks your energy when that same energy could be put to real advantage. try shuting down the local traffic at rush hour. do it gently cause you dont want to hurt nobody. shut down the place. this action is your only real solution to the problem. some kid in utah, single handedly, stopped the sale of the very lands that your mustangs and various critters roam around in. the sale was to open the public lands for mining and oil etc. this kid threw his shoes at the u s govt. this is the only type of action that matters during these radical and extreme times we are living in.
do something!
]]>By: Hue Longerhttp://dissidentvoice.org/2008/12/turning-free-roaming-horses-into-border-guards/#comment-34508
Sat, 27 Dec 2008 00:05:28 +0000http://www.dissidentvoice.org/?p=5597#comment-34508I got some cane toads to introduce to some of you folks….and yes, we humans are definitely weeds—our footprint is large and introducing species to environments which have evolved for thousands of years is part of a Human problem. The Americas are huge and many climates are connected by land, so the damage done by horses may not be so noticeable (or cared about), but it’s there. Deserve is a funny word…I don’t hate foxes and rabbits, but do you know what they (they=Humans bringing them) have done to Australia? How about boars in Hawaii?

It’s amazing that people would talk about deserve as a burrow wanders through the fragile desert eating everything…or justifies it by pointing out the other more noticeable forms of destruction Humans bring to the world. I’ll agree that mountain top mining is worse than wild mustangs (now anyways), but that doesn’t add “deserve” to the description of horses and burrows.

I don’t hate cane toads, but I kill them when I can…it’s sad and it certainly doesn’t make me feel like Humans are better than them.

]]>By: Ellie Maldonadohttp://dissidentvoice.org/2008/12/turning-free-roaming-horses-into-border-guards/#comment-34505
Fri, 26 Dec 2008 22:57:29 +0000http://www.dissidentvoice.org/?p=5597#comment-34505Free-living horeses a “weed species”? The ancestors of surviving horses came from another country, but for that matter, Europeans did too, and they robbed the land from indigenous peoples centuries ago. Are their descendants “weeds”?

True, free-living horses are not feral — they were born free, and they deserve to remain so! That some horses have become dependent on us (like Bob), or they remain with one owner for years, or they enjoy “strutting their stuff” to please their owners, doesn’t mean domestication is good for them. For every “Bob” or horse that rides in a parade, how many millions of horses have suffered or been killed because we have made them “beasts of burdern”?

It’s convenient to ignore the environmental damage of cattle ranching and animal farming — all for an unecessary food — but the so-called science that excuses it is corporate serving nonsense.

How despicable that discimination against nonhuman beings is being used to facilitate discrimination against Latinos, who can’t wait for the impossibility of getting a visa while their families go hungry!

]]>By: Dustin Rhodeshttp://dissidentvoice.org/2008/12/turning-free-roaming-horses-into-border-guards/#comment-34498
Fri, 26 Dec 2008 21:34:38 +0000http://www.dissidentvoice.org/?p=5597#comment-34498It’s disturbing to read words penned by humans who insist that we know what animals enjoy or what motivates various behaviors. In truth, we have no idea, and we never will. What we are really doing is making guesses based on our own culture and conditioning. It’s arrogant and dangerous to suggest that we know how a mustang wants to live and be handled, and more importantly: does a mustang want to be handled at all?

I concur with Lee Hall’s well argued, compassionately considered advice: that free-living animals should remain free. All sorts of animals might have played a part in American history (as pointed to over and over again in the comments thread), and that’s certainly true—but that certainly doesn’t make it ethically right. History should teach us lessons, and guide us toward making better choices in the future. Human domination is a theme that plays itself out in a broad number of ways; humans have attempted to dominate practically everything: the animal kingdom, including our fellow humans, the environment, etc. If we seek to envision a world where justice, peace and respect reign supreme, it seems like that journey should begin with how we relate to every sentient being with whom we share this wondrous, vast planet.

Dustin Rhodes,

Friends of Animals

]]>By: Priscilla Feralhttp://dissidentvoice.org/2008/12/turning-free-roaming-horses-into-border-guards/#comment-34497
Fri, 26 Dec 2008 21:14:39 +0000http://www.dissidentvoice.org/?p=5597#comment-34497Hello, Danny Ray — Buffalo who have been privatized and raised
for flesh shouldn’t compete with wild horses for water and grass.
That’s what I meant. I work, but not at raising and grazing cows and
other animals whose destinies are slaughter houses, and whose existence comprises the habitat and freedom that free-roaming horses and burros deserve. Friends of Animals opposes the removal of
wild horses from public lands for the commercial convenience of
cattle ranchers. That’s the issue to wrap your brain around. Taxpayers shouldn’t have to fund welfare ranching. And a plant-based diet starts with one meal at a time.

]]>By: Danny Rayhttp://dissidentvoice.org/2008/12/turning-free-roaming-horses-into-border-guards/#comment-34475
Fri, 26 Dec 2008 17:33:03 +0000http://www.dissidentvoice.org/?p=5597#comment-34475Priscilla Feral , I should like to point out that you and the other FOA here keep saying that we need to remove the buffalo from the plains. I think they were there before the horses. Or is what you are saying is that all human endevors west of the Mississippi should be banned. You want the poor ranchers banned, Yes I said POOR Ranchers banned ( most of them are dirt poor dispite what you think, you should really talk to some of them instead of looking down you nose at some one who works for a living, and I mean works) But I would guess that you think the ski resorts are ok and that the city of Denver is ok but they distroy more habitate with all there sub divisions than the ranchers ever will.
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